Andre Heinemann MD

jayparkinsonmd:

What really happens to our muscles as we age if we are chronically active?

These are MRI cross sections of leg muscles. Via this recently published study in the journal Physician and Sports Medicine. See also.

How does 1mSv (1 milli Sievert) visually compare to your last LA to JFK flight?

2012

I wish all of you a happy, healthy and prosperous 2012.

Thank you, great post - difference between perception and evidence :-) Evidence rules!

jayparkinsonmd:

In the latest advance for health care accountability, the country’s leading hospital accreditation board, the Joint Commission, released a list on Tuesday of 405 medical centers that have been the most diligent in following protocols to treat conditions like heart attack and pneumonia. Almost without exception, most highly regarded hospitals in the United States, from Johns Hopkins in Baltimore to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., did not make the list.

The Joint Commission list omitted the Cleveland Clinic; Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston; Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C.; Ronald Reagan U.C.L.A. Medical Center; and the University of California San Francisco Medical Center, among others. It did not include a single hospital in New York City, or the most prominent centers in Chicago and Houston.

The safest and most effective hospitals aren’t always what you think. Many of the nation’s “top” hospitals think their reputation allows them to do whatever they want, when, in the end, the evidence now suggests you’ll get higher quality, safer care at your local no-name hospital.

jayparkinsonmd:

theatlanticvideo:

‘Always a Family’ Remembers a Father’s Last Phone Call on 9/11

StoryCorps records true stories as told by real people and then brings them to life with animation. ‘Always a Family’ is the heartbreaking story of a father who called his family on the morning of September 11 from the 103rd floor of the North Tower to say goodbye.

This one is completely heartbreaking — you’ll probably need a hug after you watch it.

StoryCorps is one of my favorite things on the internet, in addition to David Lynch’s Interview Project. But this story is heartbreaking. If you knew the person you loved only had a short time left on this earth, but things fell apart, what would you do to fix your relationship with him or her? I guess the truth is that we all just have such a short time in this world, and our relationships are all we have. You’ve got to throw everything you can into them, because, it’s situations like this that give us all a bit of perspective. Get over some differences. Focus on the good in each other. Know that the vast majority of problems you have in this relationship will very likely resurface in future relationships. And just get on with living life to it’s fullest. Life’s too short not to work things out.

What’s your opinion about using mind altering substances and the taboo about it? Sam Harris has written a great and educational article to start a conversation!

Atlantis launched one final time

The Space Shuttle launched from KSC, one final time, a beautiful spectacle live on NASA TV in HD, 4.5 Million pounds of hardware and humans ascending into the sky on their way to the International Space Station. Unfortunately the weather in St. Petersburg didn’t allow me to watch the launch live in the sky.

After 135 launches, many of which I watched live and in person, I admit I am getting a little sentimental. What is most amazing is the feeling I get from events like these, enthusiasm crossing race, gender, religion, political orientation, for a few minutes all minds focused on just one thing.

The solutions to our healthcare problems are probably simpler than they appear. We could start by completely eliminating health insurance companies as they don’t add value to healthcare only cost. Next tackle the pharmaceutical and medical equipment manufacturers and stop the price gouging they are engaged in. Patients and doctors alike need to have reasonable expectations about costs and income, just as they need to have a more reasonable approach to medical malpractice.

Most people reading this probably think I live in utopia, and I might just do. However, when you look past all the bullshit, profiteering and lobbying you might just discover that I am not that far off. Whenever something appears really complicated there might be a good reason for it.

The biggest problem will be that the same people who profit from the status quo are the people who could change all of this. Real change will come from the ground up, it starts with you and me, educating ourselves and others, looking at healthcare as a business like every other, demanding proper real-life answers, and most of all, starting to say NO.

jayparkinsonmd:

I’m in Lucerne, Switzerland speaking at a conference today. This place is stunning.

Also interesting to note the challenges that the Swiss have in healthcare. They have a somewhat similar situation as the US:

• they’ve been mandated to purchase private insurance since 1996
• premiums have risen over 80% since then (our premiums double every 7 and a half years)
• they’re getting increasingly angry about the high cost of health insurance, especially since the health insurance companies are seen as highly profitable

Switzerland has only about 8 million people but over 80 different private health insurance companies. And most everything here in Switzerland’s healthcare system is done on paper, no computers. It’s fascinating to see that everywhere, all over the world, healthcare is simply backwards. Nobody has gotten it right. I used to think that we can produce some fancy new technology using the internet to disrupt healthcare and make it more friendly and efficient, but it’s quite clear that a technological solution to a political problem will fail 99.9% of the time.

jayparkinsonmd:

Colchine has been used to treat gout for decades. Gout is a relatively common painful kind of arthritis. Colchicine has been around so long that nobody had ever bothered to patent it. It was a few pennies a pill and very effective. In steps URL Pharmaceuticals. They realized it didn’t have a patent so they quickly did some studies to determine its effectiveness. Of course the studies showed that it was safe and effective. They took their studies to the FDA who quickly approved “their” colchicine. URL then had exclusive rights to sell colchicine as a branded drug at over $5 a pill. And then they successfully sued the companies who had been making colchicine as a generic for years. They’ve won the cases. And now people who depended on colchicine for their daily lives must pay $5 a pill instead of 5 cents.

Now a few members of Congress want answers.

Too late. What URL Pharmaceuticals did was just business right? That’s the American medical industry…

illustration by James Gillray